Sunday, December 30, 2007

Yet another example of that I really love using the backside of the Fancy Pants papers as the background for my layouts. I love how they add a little something, compared to just a plain cardstock background, yet they are not so patterned that it distracts from the photos or whetever else you want to add :)

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Not sure if you're getting bored of only seeing pages from my Christmas journal or not, so I thought I'd leave posting a page for today and instead show a new layout I have done...

This one is done using Francy Pants papers. I loooove using Fancy Pants papers...the backside of the papers normally make great layout backgrounds for me :) The rub-ons are also by Fancy Pants and the only other two things I have used are some little red 3-dimensional dots (by Cloud 9 I think) and a black Slick Writer by American Crafts. Photo is of my brother, his girlfriend and their daughter who was born in July.

It's so rainy and seriously dark here (feels like evening even though it's only 11 in the morning!!) that we're having all the lights on inside. I hope the weather is much better wherever you are :)

Friday, December 28, 2007

We wanted to do some shopping today and yesterday. But we did NOT want to go because of the sales. We felt we didn't want to be part of the hysteria of the sales (I just don't do busy shops! LOL!) so we just wanted to do some shopping, normal shopping in normally-busy shops...Was that possible? NO!! LOL! The shops were soooo crowded and the shopping centre soooo hot that trying some clothes on just seemed too much trouble. So we came home with nothing. Still it wasn't the end of the world. I hope if you have been out shopping too, that you actually wanted to go to the sales and that you got some great bargains :)

Oh and I almost forgot, I have yet another page from my Christmas journal to show you. This was a fast one. A super fast one. It was just to document what state your house was in on the 21st and how "ready" for Christmas you were. So basically just a quick photo and some journaling. Still it suited me just fine - that close to Christmas there are always a lot of other things that you need to do instead.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The prompt for my Christmas journal page on the 20th was to write about something unexpected (obviously Christmas related!) that you'd got in the post. I couldn't think of anything. Not Christmas related. But I could think of something unexpected that I got in the post which made me very happy...

My Making Memories Precision Trimmer started causing me trouble back in October. The measuring grid started rubbing off and putting black marks on all my card and paper that I cut. As you can imagine I was not a happy girl. It's not exactly what you want happening to expensive scrapbooking stash. So I wrote to Making Memories. Heard nothing. Chased it up. Got a reply and then I hear nothing again. Then suddenly a replacement trimmer turned up in the post out of the blue. Like a great surprise Christmas gift, considering I'd almost given up hope on them replying. A perfect thing to do my journaling about :)

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Whether you celebrate Christmas on the 24th (like we do) or the 25th, I hope you had a really, really great day! :) I know we certainly did. :)

I was talking about my envelope maker board the other day and for the next day of my Christmas journal (the 19th) it was used again. This time you were asked to write a letter to Santa. So I did. But I think a letter to Santa should be something secret. So yet again I made an envelope with my board and I let the envelope be the acual page in my journal. :)

Paper for the envelope is by Rhonna Farrer. Stickers are by Scenic Route and 7 Gypsies and the chipboard is by Scenic Route too.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Sorry there was no update yesterday due to spending 4 hours unexpectedly at the Accident & Emergency unit at the hospital. But let's talk about something nicer...

The Christmas journal. And here's yet another page to show you. It's for the 18th and all about Christmas food. I used my photo as the base of the page and journaled on the back of it. The title ("Julbord" which is the Swedish word for "Christmas table" - a Christmas buffet which is the food you have at Christmas) is made using Making Memories shimmer stickers.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

A little while ago I bought a board for making envelopes. I have to admit it was one of those things that was bought and then kinda forgotten about. However, since making my Christmas journal I have got it out and had a play with it and I really love it :)

I made som standard A6 envelopes for the journal earlier and for this prompt (17th of Dec) I did a tall/slim envelope for the first time. I love how it turned out! :)

I made the evelope from some old SEI Christmas paper and then used Scenic Route stickers & chipboard plus some Making Memories stickers to decorate it.

It turned out perfectly to use the envelope because I have written about one of those "I saw this and thought of you" presents...and of course I don't want the receiver (my dad) to just happen to read it before the big day...so it's all journaled about and kidden away inside the envelope :)

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Another page from my journal. This is the entry for the 15th of December. I'm really enjoying doing my journal and working with the mixed formats. I'm so glad I chose that (doing a mixed album) as it works out perfectly. On the days when you don't have so much to journal about you can make a small page. On the days when you have something secret to say, you pick and envelope. And on the days when you have lots to journal about, or wanting to use several photos, a large format is perfect!

So I really, really think the mixed format was the way to go and I can see myself using that next year too. And for other minibooks/albums too for that matter :) Love it!! :)

Oh I nearly forgot ---> the supplies I used for the page are from the Noel collection by "Love Elsie"...papers, rub-ons & ribbon.

Not many days left to go to Christmas now!! It's getting exciting...!! :)))

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Last year's Christmas album became so thick that the 2 inch bookrings that I used simple weren't big enough! LOL! So this year I'm trying to go a bit less bulky (not that I scrapped very bulky pages last year either). Buttons - that I love - have been banned from this year's album for that very reason... *sob*

Also I try and sometimes use the back of the previous day as the start of my page, rather than using a new sheet of cardstock as a background. So the page for the 14th of December is made on the back of the page you see in the post below (same green cardstock as you can see).

I'm trying to keep my pages rather simple now, and focus more on the journaling, as we get closer and closer to Christmas and have so many other things that need to be done too. Supplies: KI Memories striped paper, American Crafts Thickers alphabet ("music"), Rhonna Farrer rub-on ("joyous") and Love Elsie rub-ons (the cute tree etc).

Monday, December 17, 2007

...for not updating my blog yesterday! Very bad of me! LOL! But there were birthday celebrations going on in our house so I was rather busy. I even didn't get my Christmas journal page done yesterday. Bad, bad me!! So I have got something to catch up on this morning, including doing today's page too. :)

But first I have my page for the 13th of December to show you. I was a little torn by this day and whether I should follow the prompt or not. The 13th is "Lucia day" in Sweden and I half wanted to write about rather than following the prompt. But because I featured Lucia in my journal I decided to follow the prompt after all.

For those of you wondering about Lucia, you can click here. It's originally something religious but it's now celebrated by everyone and in today's society doesn't really have anything to do with religion at all. A very, very cosy day :)

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Phew...the shops are a bit crazy aren't they?! LOL! Am I glad that we finished all our Christmas shopping a week ago and all cards are made and sent (post office is crazy too!) We had to go out for a few groceries this morning and it was madness already...drove past one supermarket where people were queueing just to park!!

"LCD" asked about the advent calendar which I did a page on for the 5th of December and if I had any instructions for making it. No not really sorry LOL! The calendar was bought in Tesco and I used "Love Elsie" Noel papers, stickers and rub-ons for it (plus a few other number stickers from other manufacturers). I had a Woodward square punch which worked well to punch paper for the front of the boxes and a small round punch (also by Woodware) which I inserted my paper halfway into, to create the half moon shape at the top of the boxes. Hope that was of some help :)

Friday, December 14, 2007

...how do you like your Christmas trees? Real or artificial? I have to say it really should be a real tree to me - probably because it's what I have been used to when I grew up. :) It's just something with the smell etc that makes it so cosy. But then of course there are a lot of "valid" reasons to have an artificial one too...

The prompt for the 11th of December, for the Christmas journal, was all about trees. I did an 8x8 page with some ribbons, stickers (by Making Memories, 7 Gypsies and Love Elsie) plus a pretty Hambly rub-on tree.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

I'm still staying up-to-date with my Christmas journal which feels great. *smile* I know it's so easy to fall behind, so I'm trying my very best. Also I won't have access to my stash over Christmas so I know I will get behind then no matter what. But I did fine last year with doing my daily journaling and then making the pages in January...so I'm sure I will be fine this year too :) Or so I hope! LOL!

I know I'm a bit behind on taking photos of my pages and showing them on my blog - but I guess that's not the end of the world. :)

I really enjoyed doing this next page for the 10th of December. There's something about kraft coloured cardstock which makes me really happy every time I work with it. I'm not sure why. Maybe because nearly everything goes with it? I really don't know. But I love it :)

I used my photo as a base for the page and did the rest of the stuff (journaling etc) on the back of it. Worked well and gives yet another style of page in my album. The alphabet stickers (very shimmery and yummy!!) are by Making Memories and so are the word stickers - the other little stickers comes from the "Love Elsie" Noel collection.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

So the prompt for the 9th of December was about Christmas traditions. I decided to write about a very Swedish one. To a foreigner I'm sure this will sound very weird. But everyone from Sweden will so know what I'm talking about ...and they will be there every Christmas Eve at 15:00 (3 pm) in front of their TV...

I hope you can read my journaling...

Sorry that this is a little short today, I have a mountain of DT work which I need to attack now... :)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The stash diet is finished!!! 50 layouts done and no shopping for new stash! Yay! :) And before you ask if I have been shopping (LOL!) ---> no I have not. And unless I see something I really can't resist, I doubt I will get any new stash before January with the Christmas post delays etc.

A new page from my Christmas journal:

8th of December and we were suppposed to document little signs that show us Christmas is here soon. Quite a simple page really. I guess the trickiest part was to work out how many photos to use and where to place them. All I have used is some deep red Bazzill cardstock, Making Memories alpha shimmer stickers, a white Signo pen, a black Slick Writer and a snowflake punch.

Monday, December 10, 2007

For those of you following my stash diet - guess what? I have O-N-E to go!! One single page out of 50!! So exciting! I started on the 31st of October and to be honest, if I hadn't become ill, I'm pretty sure I would have had it done well within a month. As it's been now, my layout total has been at pretty much at a stand still the last few weeks...just adding the odd page here and there.So ---> 49 pages out of 50 done. And I just have that tiny feeling that that might have changed by tonight. We'll see... ;)

Anyway, onto my Christmas journal. This is my page for the 7th of Dec. If you can call an envelope a page?! I wanted to have a few envelopes in my 'mixed size' album and I thought what better day to use one than when the prompt is all about what you're buying people for Christmas. Perfect place to hide your list :)

I have made the envelope myself using a Christmas paper by Rhonna Farrer. The lime green rub-ons (tree etc) are by Hambly and the word stickers by Making Memories.

I never got the chance to do my page yesterday so I'm off now to print some photos, make a start and hopefully be back on track later today...

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Well it might not be that quick as the double-sided-tape bit takes a while, but at least it's pretty simple to do. If you have a Bind-It-All and you know someone who takes lot of photos but don't actually take the time to print/develope them very often (like my parents!). Use your Bind-It-All machine to put together some photo books as a Christmas gift:)

All I have done is used double-sided-tape to tape photos back to back, made chipboard covers, covered with Bazzill cardstock, titles (they're in Swedish if you're wondering) with some rub-ons and then I used my Bind-It-All to bind them together :)

Friday, December 07, 2007

Have you got them yet? Cosy Christmas feelings? I think I have!! :) I love everything about Christmas (well nearly, not the busy shops etc - so we always try and do that early!!)...the trees, the sparkly lights, cards, wrapping paper...it's all so cosy! We sat and wrote lots of Christmas cards yesterday and I have just gone out to the nearest postbox and put a load in there. Feels great to have most of them sorted :)

My page for my journal from yesterday. Or I should say pages really as I did both the front and back. Again a weird size...or should I say format. Lots of "Love Elsie" Noel stash used. I lined up some stickers & epoxy stickers to go over the edge (these are lined up on the back and front so they stick to the stickers on the opposite side...if that makes sense).

Linda you asked about my pages from the other day and if I was gluing two pages back-to-back just so I could have different colours on the pages. No not really...at first I did it just out of habit. Just like when you scrapbook you have a new background for each page (rather than working on the back of the previous layouts). Also if I want to staple something to the page, or add brads etc, they will get covered on the back with the new cardstock. So that's the reason really. But today I just used the same sheet of paper for both the front and back of my entry...mainly because the paper had two different patterns on it and I wanted to take advantage of that.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Advent..now I could have journaled about lots of different Swedish advent traditions that we have, but I choose to pick the advent calendar tree which I made (=decorated!) a few weeks back. Why? Because I'm hoping that this will become part of a new tradition, where we unpack the tree every year, fill the little drawers with chocolates and have it as our advent calendar :)

The page is 8x8 in size today. Well actually yesterday...if you see what I mean LOL! I normally make the pages on the right day (this page was made yesterday) but by the time I have finished, with the winter darkness coming so early, I have lost all daylight and I have to wait until the next day to take my photo. Or in the case of yesterday I actually did the page in the morning and then simple forgot to take a photo! LOL! That can happen too...

Papers are from the "Love Elsie" Noel range, word stickers by Making Memories and the foam letters are American Crafts Thickers.

PS. And yes my countdown of 19 days left yesterday is correct. Christmas is celebrated on the 24th in Sweden :)

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Remember the notebook I mentioned I was going to do for my journaling yesterday? This is how it turned out:

I cut pieces of chipboard to size. The front is covered with Scenic Route papers from the "Roxbury" Christmas collection. Then I cut normal printed paper to size for the pages inside. I used a corner rounder on the papers and covers (only on the two corners that were opposite to the spine) and then finally bound it all with my Bind-It-All. Turned out pretty cute in the end! :)

Above you can see my Christmas Journal page for the 4th of December. I have used papers from the same Scenic Route collection as for my little notebook. The chipboard circle in the centre is by Scenic Route too, the ribbon is "Love Elsie" and then I have used some Stickles glitter glue in different colours to add "tinsel" and glitter on the stars of the trees.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I guess I shouldn't be surprised as I love Christmas, but I'm having so much fun making my Christmas journal and using all the yummy Christmas stash!! :) As you might know I'm making a mixed size journal this time. I'd been dying to try a mixed format for a while now and this is my first time. My page for the 2nd of December is the same size as my first page (because it goes on the back of it). This page was all about Christmas weather and your expectations etc.

For yesterday's page (3rd - it was all about Christmas cards) I decided to do something totally different and just use a standard photo (15x10 cm/6x4 inches) as the base of my page. So I picked two photos and glued the back-to-back. I stapled a tab with the date on the right edge and added some stickers and writing! This was so fun to make and I definitely will make some more pages photo-background-based :)

Right I'm off to put together a little notebook for journaling. It's for the days of this Christmas journal when I don't have access to my stash - that way I can still do the journaling on the right day and then refer to that when I catch up on the pages. I figured if I made myself a pretty little notebook I'm more likely to use it :)

Monday, December 03, 2007

On Friday when Ross came home we spent ages putting up the Christmas decorations, tree etc and then we watched a Christmas film. Sitting down just enjoying the Christmas feelings. :)

On Saturday we went to IKEA to get gingerbread cookie dough (sorry Elizabeth you asked for the recipe for the dough, we "cheated"!) and spent the afternoon baking cookies together (that's a very Swedish Christmas tradition) followed by yet another Christmas film.

On Sunday we sat down in the kitchen and made our Christmas cards together. Yes ---> WE! Sooo cosy! Some of you might remember that I persuaded Ross to join me last year too. We watched "Elf" on TV and then went for a cosy walk (admittedly in the rain with a big umbrella - but that only made it more cosy) in the dark looking at people's lights & trees.

Then we finished the evening with a Swedish advent tradition which is done on the four nearest Sundays to Christmas: lighting a candle in a special four candle holder (for each Sunday you light one more, so first Sunday you light candle no 1, second Sunday you light 1 and 2 etc) eating gingerbread cookies and drinking glögg (special Christmas drink). I'm sooo happy after such a cosy, cosy weekend. You can see a picture here (even if the text is in Swedish) - the top picture is of the candleholder with real candles which you light each Sunday for the four Sundays before Christmas. The second one is showing an electrical advent candle holder - these you put up in your windows on the 1st of December and take down on the 13th of January.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Sorry, I seem to have a habit of taking photos so pages don't look even/rectangle. Not sure what I'm doing wrong LOL! I must not stand with the camera straight above what I'm taking a photo of. Anyway I couldn't cut around this page as I would have cut off one corner and not the other (if anyone has any idea of what I'm talking about here...or maybe I'm just talking to myself LOL!) So anyway....excuse the white painted wood you can see around the page.

This is my first page of my Christmas journal. It's the one I did yesterday evening which I couldn't get a photo of because it was too dark. Today it's a little better, even if it is very grey and rainy.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Today is the first day of the Christmas journal!! I already had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, but I was still really excited when the first prompt came by e-mail this morning. We have been really busy today (baking gingerbread cookies!! - A very Swedish Christmas tradition) so I only got the chance to sit down in the evening to do this and I have just finished my first page. As it's nearly nine in the evening here, it's a little (!) dark to take a photo of it so that will have to wait until another day :)

Joey - you wanted to know about the envelope making board I have. It's by Crafters Companion and it's called "the Enveloper Pro". I have borrowed a photo of the internet so you can see it below. It's about £15. I got mine a while ago...but I'm pretty sure I bought mine on Ebay.